Cuttlefish Tip Jar

EVENTS

Saving Face

The medical team was in a raceAgainst some resistant bacteria;A colony found a young boy’s faceTo treat as their own cafeteria

The miracle team investigatesAgainst some religious criteria;The “promoter of justice” tries their fatesAs they battle with strep or listeria

The desperate parents said their prayersAs conditions grew frankly horrificThey pleaded for help from the man upstairsWhose germs were a bit too prolific

Operations and antibiotics combinedBroad-spectrum, as well as specificSaved young Jake’s life, although we’ll findThe church is more unscientific

The search for answers sometimes leadsTo a cultural bit of division:A difference that comes from their separate needsMay find science and church in collision

A team of priests has been working for yearsAs a bishop provides supervisionAnd if adequate evidence really appearsWell… they won’t let that stop their decision

I’m actually glad I didn’t read the byline of this NPR story today; knowing it was Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s contribution might have been enough to keep me away. (I’m ridiculously hard to bother, as even Mabus must have figured out by now, but BBH’s voice makes me want to take a dremel drill to my inner ear.) But Jake FInkbonner, the kid at the center of the story, really seems like a good guy, and I am glad I got to hear about him.

Jake had a minor accident at the end of a basketball game, but the small cut on his lip turned nasty–necrotizing fasciitis nasty. This is the horrible “flesh-eating bacteria” that took Jim Henson from us, and it nearly took Jake. At Seattle Children’s Hospital, doctors tried to stay a step ahead of the bacteria, literally carving away parts of Jake’s face as they became infected.

Massive antibiotics and more than 20 surgeries later, Jake is lucky to be alive. So lucky, in fact, that some are calling it a miracle. And the Church is investigating. That, really, is the reason for the NPR story–a peek inside the Church’s saint factory, to see the process of attaining sainthood, and the strict, skeptical procedure (you may feel free to roll your eyes here; I did) used to evaluate potential miracles, like Jake’s. It is annoying, in the way that BBH usually is. To me, at least.

But there is good news. Jake turns out to be a really great kid. He may or may not believe it was a bona fide miracle–I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he did–but on his home page, he ends his story thusly (comic sans in the original):I am so thankful to the doctors at Children’s Hospital in Seattle that saved my life.Not everybody remembers to thank their doctors.

Take a look at his site–there are pics there, and you can see what a nightmare the poor kid made it through. More, you can see what kind of a person he is–the kind that is better than a certified miracle any day.

I currently have no desire to feel like pounding an iron rod through my head, so I'll avoid the NPR story.The doggerel, as you call it, was quite excellent, so I'll just ride away on that, skipping the media-induced headache.

Ugh! I've heard so many people credit miracles, angels, or gods for medical recoveries. It grates my nerves. The doctors and researchers deserve all the credit and put years of work into what they do, but they seem to get overlooked for sky fairies and magic.

Agreed, Melissa! At least this story has them speaking honestly about thinking his recovery was "miraculous". So often, the M word is thrown around with plausible deniability; when called on it, there is a retreat to "oh, we didn't mean 'miracle' literally!" Here, they mean it literally. At least the kid knows who to thank.